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EX-RABBI JOSEPH GOLDMAN 











































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































J UDAISM 

AND 

ITS TRADITIONS 

* ★ * 

THE CONVERSION 
OF A HEBREW RABBI 

★ ★ BY ★ ★ 

EX-RABBI JOSEPH GOLDMAN 
(copyright applied por) 



PRICE 50 CENTS 


SPOKANE BOOK 8c STATIONERY CO. 

PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS 
SPOKANE. WASHINGTON. U. 8. A. 


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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 


Foreword . 

“My Life Till Twenty-eight Years of Age”. 7 

“Judaism Under Christianity”. 9 

“My First Congregation and My First Public 
Lecture” . 11 

“The Duties of a Rabbi Has to Perform Under 
the Rabbinical Law”. 13 

Sabbath (Saturday) . 14 

“The Hebrew’s Prayer”. 17 

The Hebrew New Year and Atonement Day. 19 

Easter, Whitsen and Tent (Sukes) Day. 22 

The Hebrews’ Funerals, Weddings and Circum¬ 
cision . 27 

The Hebrew Charity Institutions and Philan¬ 
thropists . 35 

Tradition . 37 

The Hebrew School .,. 41 

The Chasidim. 45 

The Hebrew Butcher. 48 

The Synagogue . 52 

The Hope of Israel... 54 

The Jewish Missionary Work Among the Jews.. 56 

“My Conversion and Persecution”. 60 

NOV 21 1913 ^ . 

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FORWORD 


People have asked me many times to tell them 
of my conversion and the history of Judaism, and 
I have had so many applications for it that I could 
not refuse any longer to write it. 

This is my first testimony in the five years that 
1 have been in America. I do not mean in send¬ 
ing this testimony of my conversion into the world 
to convert, or to be honored by it. God forbid! 
Am sending this to the world because the world 
needs it. 

Christianity stands upon testimony, evidence, 
for Christ Jesus was a testimony, an evidence 
to the world, sent by His Father to the people, 
Paul was an evidence for Jesus when on the way 
to Damascus. Christ spoke to him and sent him 
to become the first missionary for Christ. Every 
prophet was sent by God as an evidence and tes¬ 
timony to the people and kings. They passed 
through persecutions, they could not help it. It 
was God who sent them to go through all this 
trouble. 

God has never changed his way and order. 
His program must continue till the world will 
know all. The same God sent me in 1913 on the 
16th day of December from my Orthodox Hebrew 
Synagogue to preach the gospel of Christ. It 
was not I who went; it was He (Christ) who 
sent me to do the will of His Father. 

Can you imagine a man, a Rabbi over the Syna¬ 
gogue Beit Jacove (The House of Jacob), a four 
thousand member congregation of Jews, a large 


6 


JUDAISM 


income monthly, a law writer and giver to the 
Orthodox Jewish community, a Father, a Brother, 
a King over his congregation, honored by all, 
from the youngest to the oldest, crowned by all 
Rabbi, with the greatest title of the Hebrew 
nation, respected by Jew and Gentile, who would 
change his belief and religion and follow Jesus 
Christ, and become a curse to his nation, perse¬ 
cuted and condemned by his wife and children, 
and be driven out from his home, to lose all? Was 
it I who did it? No! Could I help it and not 
follow Christ? Have I or any other man the 
power to say no, or I won’t follow him? Can 
any Jew or Gentile condemn me for doing the 
will of the unseeable God (Christ) ? Could Paul 
say: “I won’t do it?” “What shall I do, Lord?” 
says Paul, when Jesus spoke to Him on the way 
to Damascus, without any hesitation. It is the 
same Christ, the same God over all as in the day 
of Paul. 

The conversion of a Hebrew Rabbi will open 
the eyes and mind of many people, and 1 will 
give myself over to my maker, Lord and Master, 
to judge me according to my testimony. 

THE AUTHOR, 


“My Life Till 28 Years of Age” 


I was born in Kishenof, state of Baserabia, 
Russia, in the year 1865. In my sixth year I 
was engaged to be married to a young lady aged 
four. My father made up the contract with 
the girl’s father, that on my eighteenth birthday 
I should be married to his daughter, according 
to the law, and my father-in-law must give me 
the education and pay for schooling in the Hebrew 
University. I was sent to the Hebrew Univeristy 
to my eight year in Valosnia, and studied the 
Talmud till my eighteenth year, when I was call¬ 
ed home by my parents and was married to my 
engaged young girl. I was sent back to school 
seven days after my marriage day and studied 
till I was twenty-eight years of age and went 
through the examination for a Rabbi. 

It is very hard to tell all a Jewish scholar 
has to go through to study for a Rabbi, especi¬ 
ally in Russia. There is no pleasure, or joy, 
or fun, or play, or recreation. We have no bil¬ 
liard rooms or pool halls or auto rides, no theatres, 
picture shows, or dance halls. We have no girls 
to walk around with till 1:00 o’clock in the morn¬ 
ing, no love affairs, or any time wasted. We 
have only one duty and that is study, study 
and study, and this is Talmud, Misne, Ezra, Schulc- 
ton, Oroch, Prophecy, law, traditions and command¬ 
ments. 

The Hebrew literature is the largest the world 
has. The Talmud is a study of the Babylonic 
law and Jerusalem law, ideals from Rabbinical 
mind. To know Talmud one must be taught 
from childhood, his mind become developed and 



8 


JUDAISM 


trained and he becomes a habitual Talmudist. 
There are many boys or men great Talmud schol¬ 
ars that could not understand the Old Testament 
or prophecy. It is because they begin Talmud 
before the Bible. Many of the scholars are be¬ 
ginning the Bible in the University when they 
are 18 or 19 years old. So the Hebrew student 
has all his time occupied and has to work some¬ 
times 24 hours through the day before he gets 
a good sleep or a full meal. The most of the 
scholars are from poor parents and have to be 
kept by the community. Some one gives them 
a place to sleep, some one gives them one day 
in a week to eat, and the teacher goes around 
in town to get for the new student seven days 
in different homes, and he (the student) has it 
booked every day where to go to have his meals. 
There are many times they have nowhere to sleep 
and have to lie down in the school on the floor 
with their coats as pillows and overcoats as 
blankets, and at 3 :00 or 4:00 o ’clock in the morn¬ 
ing they have to be up because the people be¬ 
gin to come for morning prayer. But every 
Synagogue has a spare box where money is col¬ 
lected to keep up the Hebrew University. But 
the money doesn’t cover all the expenses and the 
scholars have to suffer. 

Fortunately, I had all the conveniences. My 
father-in-law was w r ell to do and he sent me money 
to live comfortably. My teachers labored more 
with me than with the others because I was a rich 
man’s son and my father-in-law sent them money 
regularly every month, and they tried hard to 
get me through the examination. 

On my 28th birthday I became a Rabbi with 
a diploma, that I might occupy the Rabbinical 
chair. 


“Judaism Under Christianity” 

The Jewish nation is not prejudiced against 
Christianity; in fact, the Jewish people like to 
see Gentiles Christianized, for self protection. A 
Christian doesn’t condemn or hate a Jew. The 
Gentiles do. The so-called Christians are the ones 
who condemn the Jew. The early Catholic Church 
has brought shame upon Christianity. Judaism has 
suffered more under Christianity than ever before 
Christ, even more suffering than Babylon, Rome, or 
Ewypt. The Jew will never forget Austria and Ger¬ 
many in the years of the fifteenth, sixteenth and sev¬ 
enteenth centuries. The Spanish Inquisition, under 
Torquemada, and the driving out of the Jews 
from Portugal is still engraved in the heart of 
the Jew with blood. The Germans and Austrians 
have burned thousands of families on Sata De Fe. 
These nations have been conducted under the so- 
called Christian Church. The history will tell 
you all. Even England had a Jewish Ghetto, 
where every Jew had to wear a yellow rag on 
his coat as a symbol that he was a Jew. 

It is not very long since the Jew became an 
honorable citizen, when America had opened the 
doors for all men, and the Jew was the first to 
look for a land of freedom and piade himself 
useful to this land in politics and commercialism. 

How can I forget Keshenof? Oh, Protestants! 
In the years 1902 and 1903 when Judaism has 
been trodden to death, thousands in a day, men, 
women and children have been crucified and torn 
in half under the crucifix arid the New Testament. 
The Greek Catholic Church, with the Czar the 
head of the Church, have killed so many innocent 
little ones. “And God said, I will curse them that 
curseth thee,” (Genesis 12:3). Where is the Czar 


10 


JUDAISM 


today? Where is the Russian government today? 
Where is the whole Romanoff family? They are 
blotted from this earth. The Greek Church is fall¬ 
ing with the Romanoff family. The Hapsburg 
(Austria), the Hohenzollern (Germany) and the 
Roman Empire, all are coming to an end. But 
Judaism will live to see the freedom of Christ, in 
love, in forgiveness, in joy, humanity and in broth¬ 
erly love to all mankind. 

We are asking one another, why doesn’t the Jew 
believe in Christ? It is written in the prophets, in 
the Psalms and in the five books of Moses. Why, 
then, does he not believe? 

And I say to you all, as a Hebrew and also a 
follower of Christ, the Son of God, Judaism will 
never receive Christ and Christianity till condemna¬ 
tions will be blotted out in the so-called Chris¬ 
tianity. 

Jesus forgave the Jews. The Christians do not 
forgive. There remains still the memory of the 
so-called Christians the words “Crucify Him! 
Crucify Him!” and they forget that through His 
crucifixion we were saved. Instead of loving the 
Jewish people they condemn them. 

Every Christian loves a Jew, and if he does 
not love a Jew he is not a Christian. The Jew 
loves to see a Gentile Christianized and loves a 
good Christian. He feels that the Christian loves 
him . 

But the Jew will hate a Jew who becomes a 
Christian. The Jews don’t believe that it is pos¬ 
sible for a Jew to be converted after so many 
years’ suffering under Christianity. It must be ex¬ 
plained to him that Christ is love, not hate; Christ 
is life, not death; Christ did not come to destroy 
but to create, and all the good there was in Jesus, 
the good must be pronounced to every man that 
every man may live Christ. 


“My First Congregation and 
My First Public Lecture 
in the Synagogue” 

The town was all in the greatest excitement 
on a Wednesday. Mr. Glixstein’s son-in-law is 
coming home as a Rabbi and will take onr old 
Rabbi’s place—old Rabbi Samuel was 82 years old 
and was 56 years on the job. He was all the 
city had. Ail he had he gave to the poor. The 
people called him Angel Gabriel. He always had 
a smile on his glorious face; all soul, all heart, 
all spirit, all man. Every broken heart he healed 
and mended with a smile and cheerful hope. Was 
loved and respected by every Russian and by 
every Jew honored. When he walked through 
the street on his way home from the Synagogue, 
hundreds of little children all around him and 
he in the middle, with his long silk robe and 
white beard, his usual smile on his face and his 
top hat • on his head, he looked like a prophet. 
Men and women came out of the doorway and 
looked upon him with pride, bowing his head to 
everybody with a blessing on his lips. The chil¬ 
dren used to sing all together: “There goes the 
Rabbi; there goes the Rabbi! God bless the 
Rabbi, God bless the Rabbi! Long live the Rabbi! 
long live the Rabbi!” “This is my breakfast,” 
he used to say to everybody he met, meaning 
the children. “God of Israel blessed me with 
many angels (children). God of Israel, how I 
bless Thee,” he used to murmur till he came to 
his home. 


12 


JUDAISM 


He came to meet me by entering the town. 
He took me in his arms and kissed me and pressed 
me to his bosom, wept and said: “Son, take my 
place, and do the will of Jehovah.” He could 
not say any more, his tears were choking him. I 
got in his buggy and we all went to my father- 
in-law ’s house. 

It was on a Friday. Every family was busy 
preparing the Sabbath meals, in order to attend 
the evening service when I (the Rabbi) would 
give my first lecture to the congregation. The 
Synagogue was packed with Gentiles and Jews. 
My father and my father-in-law, with pride in 
their faces, brought me in the Synagogue, took 
me up to Rabbi Samuels’ place. I could feel the 
eyes of the people fixed on me. I could feel a 
load on my shoulders, and fear came on me, and 
a prayer came out from my soul, “God of Israel, 
help me, give me knowledge and wisdom in my 
first lecture to my new congregation as a new 
and young leader for my people.” 

The time came when I was called upon in 
the pulpit to speak. Like a young lion I ran 
up in my holy robe, opened a Bible and quoted 
scripture and lectured Talmud, Bible, Misne, and 
from many other Rabbinical books, close to two 
hours. When I finished, Rabbi Samuel came up 
first and kissed me (this was his habit, kissing), 
and evedybody shook hands and congratulated me. 
My father took me by my hand, and with tears 
said: “Son! This is all I can say. Can you 
understand?” I said, “Yes, father, I do!” and 
we fell on each other’s shoulders. 


“The Duties a Rabbi Has to Per¬ 
form Under the Rabbinical Law” 

The Christians are mistaken in believing that 
the Jew and the Hebrew are one. A man may be a 
Jew and not a Hebrew. He (the Jew) may 
read the Hebrew but not understand, or a Hebrew 
Rabbi may not be a reformer or a Jewish Rabbi, 
as we have so many of in the United States. 
The Jews are divided in four sects: Chasidim, 
Misnagdim, Perushim, and Ashkanasim. The holi¬ 
est of all these four is the Chasidim, and a number 
of the Perushim. The Chasidim are great tradi¬ 
tionalists and follow the Mosaic law. the Rabbinical 
law and 613 traditions. The Misnagdim are the 
reform Jews, belong to one nation. They are not 
against Judaism but much against tradition. They 
have no synagogue but have a temple. The temple 
is more like a Protestant church, with an organ 
and a girls’ choir, while the Hebrew synagogue 
lias no music as it is strictly forbidden from the 
Rabbinical law. 

It will take a reform Rabbi six years in an 
American University in Cincinnati to become a 
Rabbi or a Doctor, and a Hebrew Rabbi in Russia 
will spend twenty years to become a Rabbi over 
a congregation. The Reformer knows very little 
of the Talmudical law or Dinnim because he doesn’t 
need it. A Hebrew Rabbi must know every 
tradition or law that is written in the Hebrew 
or Chaldean literature. The majority of the Amer¬ 
ican Jews are doing business on Saturday. At 
the same time it is written “Thou shalt keep the 
Sabbath Day holy,’’ and the Russian Hebrew will 


14 


JUDAISM 

give his life first before he will break this law 
of Sabbath. A Hebrew Rabbi doesn’t visit his 
congregation. The congregation comes to the 
Rabbi. Whenever there is trouble between two 
Jews the Rabbi has to make it right and try to 
satisfy both parties. All the Synagogue’s affairs 
go through the Rabbi’s hands, and the little time 
he has left he studies more law from his great 
library at home. 

Sabbath (Saturday). 

The majority of the Hebrews in Poland or Rus¬ 
sia are making their living from the peasant in 
the country. Many are selling needles, cotton, 
combs and brushes and dresses for children. Sun¬ 
day morning he is ready to go out with a large 
pack on his back and a cane in his hand to lean 
upon when tired, and begin his long journey of 
thirty, forty or fifty miles. His family is left to 
eat on credit till he returns on Friday. All his 
work and worry is for the Sabbath that he may 
have plenty to eat on the holy day, with his fam¬ 
ily. All the week his family lived on black bread, 
salted herring and skimmed milk. On Thursday 
the wife will get white flour and many other things 
from the store, having it ready for Friday to bake 
and to cook when he comes home. Friday before 
noon many of them come into town with a heavy 
load on their backs. The Hebrew has sold his 
needles, his combs and dresses. He brings home 
in exchange eggs, butter, rags, bones, and copper, 
and hair. It is not possible to believe that one 
can carry such a load of hundreds of pounds for 
thirty miles or more. But he can do it. The desire 
to live and to provide for his family gives him the 
strength to do it. The wife helps him to take off 
his load from his shoulders. She sorts out every¬ 
thing and gives it to the storekeeper, and pays her 


JUDAISM 


15 


debts and gets a ruble (fifty cents) for beef and 
fish and wine, and something for a smoke for him 
and to get a Russian Turkish bath, and the store¬ 
keeper holds two rubles for a new stock for next 
week. Friday evening the room is clean, the table 
covered with a white tablecloth, four candlesticks 
and candles burning. The room is warm, the chil¬ 
dren clean and washed, plenty of food cooked for 
tonight and tomorrow. The family of six or seven 
are waiting for Father to come home from the 
Synagogue. 

Till then, Mother tells the children stories. How 
glad we have to be that God has given us a Sab¬ 
bath, that all the trouble and sorrow from the week 
is forgotten, and we must be happy today. God 
wants us to rejoice this day. Mother tells the 
children that God has punished Israel to live 
amongst the Christians, how the Christians kill the 
Jews, but God will punish the Christians (meaning 
the Russians) and will bring us home to Jerusalem 
soon. 

Father comes in looking like a prophet, his long 
beard combed clean, his silk robe and slippers, a 
smile on his face. Takes the baby on his arm and 
the other children holding his robe, he walks up 
and down the room many times over. He is no 
more the same man of this morning with a heavy 
load on his back, bent with the burden. No more the 
suffering Jew, no more the slave. He is king to¬ 
day. It is Sabbath. He is praising God and God 
w r ants him to praise. “The Lord is my shepherd, 
I shall not want.” He washes his hands, and the 
boys are following Father, doing the same also. 
He sits down by the table and praises God with a 
sweet melody, all the chidren singing “We thank 
the Father Jehovah for giving us the Sabbath. One 
day in the week to praise the holy name.” 


16 


JUDAISM 


After supper the children are going joyfully to 
sleep, and Father is left by the table to read the 
Bible and the Sabbath law, which every Hebrew 
must perform. 

When the day breaks, everybody gets up happy 
and joyfully. Mother gets the tea ready, which 
is kept in the hot stove during the night. After 
tea everybody goes to the Synagogue. Mother, 
with the girls, and Father with the boys. The 
women are not sitting with the men in the Syna¬ 
gogue. The women have a gallery with a curtain 
before them that no man may see them. She can 
see and hear the prayer and singing from the 
Rabbi, and can see the man, but the man cannot 
see the woman. After the ceremony the husbands 
meet their famiies and each one takes his own fam¬ 
ily home for dinner. 

The Sabbath day is very holy to the Hebrew. 
He must not carry anything in his pockets. He 
must not smoke. He must not talk week days’ 
talk or walk out of town. He must pray and bless 
God all day. He must forget his trouble and sor¬ 
row. This day is holy to the Lord God. Father 
takes a nap after dinner for two hours, and goes 
to the Synagogue again at four o’clock to hear 
the Rabbi’s lectures. Every Saturday afternoon 
the Rabbi lectures for his congregation till sun¬ 
down, when ready to give the second prayer and 
ready to eat the third meal. Every Hebrew must 
eat three meals on Saturday, the first one Friday 
night, the second Saturday noon, the third Satur¬ 
day before sunset. The last meal! What a change 
it is from the first meal on Friday night to the 
last meal on Saturday morning. No more singing, 
no joyful talks, no more food as much or as 
good as last night or this morning. Every¬ 
thing is cold, the food, the home, the hearth, and 
the spirit. Everybody is so sad and lonesome. Ev¬ 
eryone feels something different, something will 


JUDAISM 17 

happen. Every eye is fixed upon Father. Father’s 
face doesn’t look the same as this morning. He is 
thinking of tomorrow. Tomorrow! When the 
heavy load will bend his back for another forty 
miles to bring home something to eat for the little 
ones, and maybe he will never come home again 
and will never see them again. “God of Israel, 
bring me home safely again, to keep thy command¬ 
ments,” he prays. The wife and the children are 
sitting in silence and everybody, even the youngest, 
feels the sorrow that is to come for the coming 
week. 

Monday morning the army of men with their 
packs on their backs marching through the street 
on the way to the country in different directions. 
God of Israel, help us! 

“The Hebrew’s Prayer.” 

I have never believed, as I grew up, that people 
might be free to do all they wanted. I believed, 
first, that God does not permit freedom, and sec¬ 
ond, the Government of Russia would not allow 
it, and that especially the Jews had to suffer for 
the sins of their fathers. When I was thirteen 
years of age I began to follow the 613 traditions 
and tried not to miss one if possible. For instance, 
the first tradition. As soon as I opened my eyes 
in the morning I tried not to put my feet on the 
floor till my eyes were washed and my finger nails 
were washed clean. The finger nails must be 
washed because Satan was resting through the 
night under my finger nails, and the most of the 
holy Hebrews kept by their bedside a jar of water 
with a handle (it must have a handle) and when 
awake he must pour three times over each hand 
and pray. Next come the eyes and face and another 
prayer. Next comes the cleaning of the inside 
body. He will walk around the room for so long 


18 


JUDAISM 

till he is ready for cleaning. Then comes the morn¬ 
ing prayer, which must be prayed before nine 
o’clock. After nine o’clock the morning prayer 
could not be performed. It must be prayed 
in the presence of ten men at home or in 
the Synagogue. Everybody goes to the Synagogue. 
If there were nine men and a boy under thirteen 
years, the prayer could not be performed. When 
nine men and a boy of thirteen or over, the 
prayer goes on. If nine men and a woman or ten 
women or more, it could not be prayed, because a 
woman counts not. The woman has her own law 
to perform which the man has nothing to do with. 
The women need not pray even in the morning, 
afternoon or evening. 

After the morning prayer he goes home for 
breakfast, his hands must be washed again, using 
a cup with a handle on it, and also three times 
pouring water on each hand. Then more prayer, 
and blessings to God. The Hebrew will bless God 
after his meal and will thank God for feeding him, 
after the meal. Before, he will bless yod for pre¬ 
paring him the food. 

Three prayers through the day must be per¬ 
formed and, God forbid, it must not be neglected; 
in the morning before nine o’clock, in the after¬ 
noon, any time before sunset, and in the evening 
when stars can be seen in the skies. Many times 
a Hebrew is busy all day on the road or in the 
street, and people are not surprised to see him 
.standing on the sidewalk with his face to the east 
and praying, because before he may reach home 
or the Synagogue the sun may go down and he 
may lose a prayer. The third prayer may be 
prayed any time after dark. Before going to bed 
he prays and gives his soul to God to take care of 
till he awakes. After giving the soul to God he 
must not speak to anyone, but close his eyes and 
wait till sleep comes. 


The Hebrew New Year and 
Atonement Day 

Not many Christians have witnessed a Hebrew 
New Year or Atonement (Fast Day) in the Hebrew 
orthodox life. It is very secret and holy. The 
Years begins in October (Ellel) and lasts two days. 
It is permitted to cook the food but not to do 
anything else but pray. The morning prayer lasts 
till one o’clock and at 2:30 everybody must be in 
the Synagogue again for praying and reading the 
holy words written by the great Rabbis of old. 
The afternoon and evening prayer are a continu¬ 
ance with a fifteen minute interval. At eight 
o’clock in the evening everybody is going home for 
the second meal. On these two days the prayer 
is for a good new year for himself and all the 
Jews, in fact the Jew always prays for the nation 
of Israel, for every Jew all over the word wher¬ 
ever he may be, and asking God to forgive him 
his sins. At half past three p. m. the Jewish people 
from every Synagogue march to the water front 
with their prayer books, and many groups are 
there, all praying to God that the sins they have 
done through this year may fall into the water 
and stay there. After this prayer they lift up the 
two corners of the robe and shake off the sins from 
the body into the water, and everybody goes home 
more relieved and satisfied, and all go back to the 
Synagogue. This is tradition, and has been kept- 
up for over two thousand years. Hebrewism has 
never changed. But this does not include the Jews 
of America. These Jews in America are not Jews 
and not Christians. They are more Americans than 


20 


JUDAISM 


anything else with a Jewish face, and that, is all 
that is left of old Judaism—the face. 

The morning after the two days of performance 
is Gedalje. Gedalje was a great Hebrew and made 
many traditions, and was tortured to death, and 
was brought on stretchers in the Synagogue on 
New Years’ day, and with his mangled body he 
gave out a great prayer to Jehovah, and every Jew 
who prays this wonderful prayer weeps and 
mourns. 

“This New Years, Father, thou hast written, 

And Atonement day thou has sealed. 

Some one shall be lost and many shall be born, 
Some shall live and some shall die, 

Some shall have a short end and some shall live 
long, 

Some shall die on water and some shall die by fire. 
Some shall die by knife and some shall die by the 
rope.” 

And all the Jews are weeping because millions of 
them have known torturing in many countries and 
even in Russia. This Gedalji day is a fasting day 
and begins the morning after New Years. 

Ten days after New Years comes Atonement 
day. This day is the greatest day and the holiest 
day in the year, even holier than Sabbath. No 
person must wear shoes on their feet. Nobody 
over thirteen years must eat or drink for twenty- 
four hours. The body must be punished because 
it has sinned and the soul must be washed in 
prayer to be clean. 

If any Christian could come in that day in a 
Hebrew Synagogue in Poland and see the tears 
on the cheeks of the suffering Israel, the broken¬ 
hearted cry , the hundreds of burning candles, and 
every candle stands for a lost soul, not by natural 
death but by the hand of a murderer from the 


JUDAISM 21 

Greek Catholic Church, you would all weep and 
cry together with the broken-hearted Israel. 

Many have lost their husbands going out with 
a heavy load on his back for Saturday in the coun¬ 
try for a living. You will find hundreds of little 
candles burning which stand for children and 
mothers are fainting and praying for these little lost 
souls. Oh, Christians! help me to cry, help me to 
mourn for the stiffering Israel. I have no more 
tears in my own eyes to shed. I myself have left 
all I had one the three hundred little graves I have 
buried in one day. I have left my tears on the 
grave of my own six children murdered by Cos¬ 
sacks in the Kishenof Pogram. I have no more. 
All is dry in me except one drop of blood which 
keeps me alive, and this is Christ. 

Atonement day, fasting and praying day for nine¬ 
teen hundred years, every year the same, and the 
same desire. Jehovah, bring us home again to Jeru¬ 
salem, and we will sin no more. But Israel’s prayer 
has been answered, and he is going home once 
more to his Mother Zion and no one shall trouble 
him any more. Many are praying all night, and 
many are going home to lay down for two or three 
hours’ sleep, and to take care of the little ones at 
home. 

Early in the morning everybody is in the Syn¬ 
agogue, young and old. Everybody is praying. 
Many of the Jews are punishing themselves by 
•staying on their feet for twenty-four hours with 
peas in their stockings, and standing through the 
day till night comes. Every Hebrew wears a Kit- 
tel, (a long white robe), an symbol of death and 
purity, because if a Hebrew dies he is buried in 
this kind of a robe. It looks like a long night shirt 
and this is the only costume he is buried in. 

The wife goes home one hour before it is fin- 


22 


JUDAISM 


ished to prepare a meal for the man and children 
coming home from the twenty-four hours’ fasting 
and praying. Everybody is so satisfied and re¬ 
lieved after the day of fasting that he feels like 
a little child just born. No more sin in him. God 
lias answered his prayer, and he is young again, 
and eats and drinks and is happy. 

Easter, Whitsen and Tent (Sukes) Day. 

Three More Hebrew Holidays. 

The Hebrew has five holidays in a year, namely, 
New Year (Rosh Hoshona), Atonement day (Jorn 
Ceepur), Easter (Pasach), and Whitsen (Showues), 
and Tent day (Sukes). Every holiday has differ¬ 
ent traditions and performances. Every holiday 
comes from the Bible, commanded from God to 
Moses. 

It is interesting to see that every holiday has 
been transformed by the Rabbinical law, and they 
are no more the same today as two thousand years 
ago. 

For instance, Atonement day in the Temple, 
when Judaism was in full glory and power, hun¬ 
dreds of thousands of Jews came to Jerusalem, 
every one with a gift and a present from all over 
Palestine and Judea. Jerusalem was the center 
for joy, love and enjoyment. Girls and boys used 
to get married on Atonement day. The Levis used 
to play on instruments and sing, dancing and sing¬ 
ing in the Garden of the Temple, kissing, loving 
and hugging each other. 

The priest alone used to go into the holy of 
holies and pray for six hours, and the nation pa¬ 
tiently waiting for the priest to come out and to 
hear God’s verdict. “Your sins are forgiven.” 
This was all the priest said. Then dancing, sing¬ 
ing, playing, hollering, begins. For eight days 


JUDAISM 23 

happy Israel used to live in this joy in Jerusalem. 

Then came the destruction of the Temple and 
taking away Palestine, and taking the Jews into 
captivity, and Atonement day became a fasting 
and a weeping day. 

Since the nation has been driven out of Pales¬ 
tine the Jew has never had a peaceful day or a 
joyful day. The nations walked over him, and 
millions have been tramped to death, 
of old and the desire to return home again to see his 
holy land where he used to live in happiness and 
comfort. He longs for freedom, for mother love, 
for home and country, and today he can see Zion 
stretching out her arms to Israel. Come, my wan¬ 
dering boy, thy mother is still living. I will take 
care of you. Father blessed me and kept me alive 
to see my boy in the old days of my life. Home! 
How God keeps His promises. 

But! Will Israel know how to rule his land? 
Will Israel know how to live peacefully amongst 
themselves? Will Israel know how to live in friend¬ 
ship with the other nations? Will he remember the 
two thousand years of trouble and forgive his op¬ 
pressors? If Israel will do all the good there is in 
Israel, surely God will help him. 

Easter is a great and noble holiday. Moses 
took the children of Israel out from Egypt. And 
this is Independence week. The happiest of all 
holidays is Easter. Six weeks before the holiday 
everybody tries to get his Passover cakes (Mazes) 
ready three months before every poor man in 
Poland works very hard to make this holiday a 
success, to have plenty of everything. He knows 
he will have eight days rest and must have plenty 
to eat. In this eight days he could not beg or buy 
anything. It must be all in the house. This is the 
day when the chidren are getting new clothes, and 


24 


JUDAISM 


the wife a new skirt and apron, and he himself a 
new pair of boots and hat. When the children are 
in need of shoes or pants through the year, the 
mother will tell them to wait for Easter and father 
will have plenty of money. 

There is not a Jew in the world who has no 
Mazes on Easter. Every large city where there 
are many Jewish communities has special clubs 
where every Jew who has no money to buy Mazes 
is provided with everything he needs. He gets 
from the Society Club eggs, beef, sugar, horserad¬ 
ish, potatoes, Mazes, and Maze flour, and many 
other things the household needs. Even in New 
York, Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Paul and many 
other large cities in the United States, the poor 
Jews are looked after for this special holiday, be¬ 
cause the community is responsible for them, that 
every Jew must have it. 

In Russia there is a special committee sent out 
through the city to find poor Jews who haven’t 
the necessities for this Holy week, and every Jew 
is provided for. 

There are many poor Jews who used to be well 
to do once upon a time, and they are ashamed to 
ask. These Jews are especially provided by the 
Maze Club and everything is sent to them, secretly. 

The bakers are busy for six weeks beforehand 
in baking Passover cakes, and a day before the 
holiday the home is full of fish, beef, potatoes, 
vegetables, fruit and nuts for eight days. No 
leaven bread or other bread must be used, even 
new dishes must be provided. Most of the Jewish 
families are using the last year’s Easter dishes 
they have stored away to save the expense of buy¬ 
ing new ones. 

The old dishes which are used through the year 
are stored away for eight days, and are in use 


JUDAISM 25 

again as soon as the holday is over. A Gentile 
must not come in with bread in his hands in a 
Jewish home on Pasach, and a Jewish child must 
not come in contact with a Gentile’s child for fear 
the child will bring in the house a piece of bread 
and thus the house become unclean. The Russian 
Gentiles try to disturb the Jewish people often by 
throwing in the house a piece of bread through the 
window, and the Jew has to go to the Rabbi for 
consolation over this matter. 

Passover week is a happy holiday. The poor 
forget their troubles and eight days are spent in 
eating, sleeping and joyful praying. Every Jewish 
household make his own wine from raisins and 
Mad, from honey and hops, and It is the popular 
drink through Passover week. The drinks are 
bottled up air tight and presented to Gentile 
friends as sent by many of the Jewish population. 

Six weeks after the Passover, Whitsun 
(Sawoves) is coming on. This is a holiday when 
God has given the ten commandments from Mount 
Sinai, and also a memorial day of King David. 
The first day of these two days David died, and 
the first night is kept very holy by the Jews. All 
men are going to the Synagogue for the whole 
night and singing David’s Psalms, and burning 
candles in the Synagogue as a memorial to his soul. 
As soon as day breaks, the morning prayer is per¬ 
formed, and eight or nine o’clock every Jew goes 
home and has his breakfast, and goes to bed and 
sleeps till two o’clock, when the holiday dinner is 
ready on the table. These two days are joyful 
days and resting days. There are no more holidays 
till July (Ov). The ninth of “Ov” is the day of 
fasting and w'eeping, and sackcloth and ashes are 
used. This is the day when Jerusalem has been 
destroyed by Titus and the Jews have been taken 


26 


JUDAISM 


into captivity. The day is like Atonement day, 
but with less prayer. 

Three days after Atonement day and thirteen 
days after New Year’s day comes Tent (Sukes) 
day. This holiday lasts eight days, and the Jewish 
people must live out doors. 

The Tent is built in the back yard with boards 
of four walls, ten to fifteen feet square. The roof 
is covered with branches of pine trees, and the 
leaves from other trees. A long table is made in 
the middle of the Tent, and long seats from boards 
are fixed around for seats. The food is cooked 
indoors and the wife brings it in for the man in 
the Tent. Sometimes there are four or five fam¬ 
ilies together, and each family has different food, 
each one better than the other, and in a case like 
this jealousy arises amongst them, especially by 
the children, for the reason that every woman tries 
her best to make better food than the rest of the 
women, and this is the day when the husband has 
the benefit of it. 

Much syrup is used for this holiday, a symbol 
of having a sweet year. “Sukes” is eight days 
in all. The first two days and the last two days 
are the principal holidays. The four days between 
he may work to make his living, but must eat 
every meal in the Tent. 

This concludes the five Jewish holidays. 


The Hebrews' Funerals, Weddings 
and Circumcision 

I am much interested to see the Christian fun¬ 
erals, and it reminds me of thousands of years ago, 
when we (the Hebrews) used to have the same as 
the Christians are performing today. It may be 
a surprise to the Christians, but in fact it is so. 

You are making a Jewish funeral, with flowers 
on the coffin, and silk in the coffin, belong to the 
Jew. Christianity came and began to perform the 
funeral in the same manner as the Jew, in a deco¬ 
rated coffin. The Rabbinical law made a change 
and forbids the Jews to follow the Christians, and 
since then the Jews are making their own funerals 
according to law, as follows: 

The dead body must be taken out of the bed 
fifteen minutes after giving up his soul, and as 
soon as the body is cold, he is placed on the floor 
with his feet facing the door. Several straws must 
be placed under the body and a black cloth covers 
the whole body. A burning candle must stay by 
his head. The body must be buried in twenty-four 
hours from the hour of his death. Every Jewish 
community has a Holy club for this purpose, com¬ 
posed of men and women, who volunteer. There 
are from twenty to thirty in the club. The men 
perform these duties for a man, and the women for 
women. As soon as the body is on the floor, one 
of the members of the club must watch the body 
until he is taken out. It is unlawful to leave the 
body alone. Then comes the women and the sew¬ 
ing performance begins to make the one-piece suit 
from white linen, and it must be stitched by hand. 
At the same time the body is taken in another 


28 


JUDAISM 


room for cleaning. All the men from this Holy 
club must be present. The body must be cleaned 
inside thoroughly, and washed "with warm yrater 
outside. Then the one-piece suit is taken in and 
is placed on him and tied up over the shoulders 
with his head out. He is placed in the coffin and is 
taken to the cemetery. In the cemetery the body 
is taken out from the coffin and put into the grave 
on a boarded floor and with a sand pillow under 
his head. The sand in the pillow comes from Jeru¬ 
salem, which every Hebrew prepares himself when 
alive, because by Rabbinical law he must lay his head 
on the ground of Palestine when he dies, to be 
resurrected when Messiah will come. Close by his 
head is a board, and also by his feet, and two 
boards are placed on the little side boards, which 
makes a coffin in the ground, and then earth is 
thrown on top of the boards. All this ceremony 
must be done in twenty-four hours. 

Coming home, the relatives, sons, daughters, 
wife, brothers, sisters, must take off their shoes 
and sit on the floor or on a footstool for seven days, 
and a lamp must burn all the time and a glass of 
water is placed next to the lamp. The fire stands 
for the soul, and the water is for baptism of the 
soul. 

The relatives must not eat at the table for 
seven days, but may sleep in bed through the 
night. If there is a son living he must pray 
specially three times a day for a w r hole year, for 
the blessing of his father’s soul. If there is no 
son or brother, a prayer must be hired, a well- 
known holy Hebrew to pray for his soul, and the 
prayer gets paid for it. Every year there is a 
memorial day to keep the same day that the person 
died, and a candle or lamp keeps burning for 
twenty-four hours. The most of the reform Jews 


JUDAISM 


29 


are keeping memorial day, and the reform son has 
to go to the Synagogue to say “Kadesh,” a prayer 
for the soul. 

“The Hebrew Wedding.” 

Let us turn to happier days. A wedding! It 
is a happy moment, the wedding day, for both 
parties. The young couple are not together the 
day before the wedding. Many girls in Poland 
have never seen their future husbands until the day 
of the wedding, and the young man never sees his 
future wife until this day. 

In the orthodox life the daughter or the son 
must not interfere with the engagement which the 
two fathers have made between themselves. The 
boy may study for a Rabbi. Pie is in the univer¬ 
sity. The boy’s father is looking for a rich girl 
for his son. There is an orthodox rich Jew who 
looks for an honorable son-in-law. He (the son’s 
father) comes to the rich man and says: “I have 
a son, a well learned boy, and a Hebrew. He is 
studying for a Rabbi. What is your price to have 
him for your son-in-law? The price for a Rabbi 
is very high. It may be as much as ten thousand 
rubles (50 cents a ruble). A poor cobbler will 
not marry a girl until he gets three hun¬ 
dred rubles. A tailor gets five hundred rubles, a 
good carpenter gets five hundred to six hundred 
rubles, a Jewish lawyer gets two thousand rubles, 
a doctor must get five thousand to six thousand 
rubles. A Rabbi sometimes is priceless. The rich 
man and the religious man will spend his last ruble 
to get a Rabbi. For two reasons: first, he is an 
educated Hebrew; second, when the Messiah comes 
the father-in-law will sit next to his son-in-law. 
the son-in-law will sit next to Abraham, Isaac ami 
Jacob, and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will sit next 


30 


JUDAISM 


to Jehovas. So he (the father-in-law), will be 
amongst the royal family. For this reason every 
rich Hebrew buys an everlasting seat in Heaven. 
My father-in-law, it seems to me, did not get a 
great bargain in me, or a seat in Heaven. He is 
dead now, and I don’t know where he sits, because 
his son-in-law, the Rabbi, became a Christian. But 
never mind, his intentions were good. 

It is a rule that every Jewish girl must have 
money to get a husband, and when she is poor she 
has to work very hard to get two hundred or three 
hundred rubles, and to get any man, even a wid¬ 
ower, with three or four children, because it is the 
law that she must be married, and it is a disgrace 
if she is not married. A girl of twenty-five years 
of age is counted old, as usually the girls get mar¬ 
ried young—sixteen, seventeen or eighteen years 
of age is the girl’s time to be married. The boy 
must keep up the law or tradition. The law says 
“At eighteen years thy son must be married,” and 
when the boy is studying for a Rabbi he must ful¬ 
fill this law, and when he breaks this law he can¬ 
not become a Rabbi. The lower class of Jews do 
not always keep the law, and get married any time, 
whenever the man can find a girl with plenty of 
money. 

But I am writing of the Hebrew law. 

The Jewish wedding lasts for seven days, with 
singing, dancing, drinking and eating. The young 
couple may not be present, but the guests are there 
just the same, and the music is there and the danc¬ 
ing goes on all the time. If the girl’s father is 
well to do, he keeps the couple for a year or two 
in his home and provides them with food and 
clothing. The reason is that he or the mother is 
to take care of them and show them how to live 
and to obey one another. And sometimes it is made 


JUDAISM 


31 


up between the two fathers that the girl’s father 
shall feed them and keep them for two years and 
take the son-in-law into business and make him a 
useful husband. 

The marriage ceremony is written and conduct¬ 
ed by the Rabbi in the presence of four witnesses, 
and is performed in the Synagogue for the whole 
congregation. The bridegroom is taken under a 
canopy. Then the bride and her parents and her 
relations come in and walk around the bridegroom 
seven times. After this, the Rabbi reads the con¬ 
tract, and the duty he (the bridegroom) has to 
perform to his wife. Then the Rabbi takes a glass 
of wine and blesses it, and drinks a little, and 
gives it also to the bridegroom and to the bride 
under her heavy veil, then the Rabbi places the 
glass on the floor and tells the bridegroom to stand 
upon it and break it with his foot, and after all 
this the congregation repeats aloud, “Mazel, Tow, 
Mazel, Tow” (good luck, good luck), then the music 
plays a happy march through the streets, bride 
and bridegroom walking side by side, and the 
crowd being until they reach the home where the 
wedding is to take place. Many women meet the 
bride and bridegroom with long loaves of bread, 
and dancing before them with the loaves held high 
in their hands, as a symbol that bread shall always 
be before them in full measure. Long tables are 
set, and everybody sits down, the bride and groom 
on the front seats, the Rabbi beside them as a guest 
of honor. After twelve o’clock at night the danc¬ 
ing begins. The girls dance wdth the girls, and 
the men with the men, and the musicians get ten 
kopike (five cents) for every person who wants to 
dance. 

Every morning at six o’clock through the seven 
days of the wedding, the musicians go to every 


32 


JUDAISM 


one of the guests who are invited to the wedding, 
to play for them under the window a happy march. 
The whole town, if it isn’t very large, knows the 
wedding is still on. 

Strangers are invited to eat and to drink, no 
matter whether Jew or Gentile. All are welcome. 
The bride and groom are in hiding, and nobody 
knows where they are. A company of young men 
try to find them, and after they are found they 
are brought back to the dance hall, where they 
have to kiss one another in the presence of all. The 
bride and groom are blushing terribly and ashamed, 
and everybody is laughing heartily and having a 
good time. 

This wedding ceremony is still performed by 
the Jews in Poland, or by the “Chasidim,” the 
holy Hebrews in Russia. 

“Circumcision.” 

Not many Christians know the meaning of this 
great commandment which God has made an ever¬ 
lasting covenant to Abraham. There is a question 
asked by many people, “Could not God have made 
some other covenant than circumcision?” It was 
greatly necessary for that time and climate to be 
operated on, and even today we will find that the 
Jewish nation are the healthiest and strongest in 
the body, soul and spirit. In five thousand years 
hundreds of nations die out completely from dis¬ 
eases, sickness, and many nations from the chol¬ 
era epidemic. The Jew walked among them, 
worked among them, and buried them, and es¬ 
caped from the epidemics, and have been left un¬ 
touched. 

The Egyptian epidemics in Moses’ time are 
taken for miracles, but it was the Abrahamic cov¬ 
enant which saved them from the great epidemics. 


JUDAISM 33 

“One drop of blood for my sake,” circumcision. 
The Jewish nation never had thirteen million peo¬ 
ple since the nation has been in existence. Today 
they have thirteen million living all over the word, 
stronger and healthier than ever before. Thousands 
are getting killed and ten thousand are born 
in their place. The man who doesn’t believe in 
God could not understand the covenant with Abra¬ 
ham. I could not explain to you the great meaning 
and benefit to man of circumcision. I may explain 
to any man privately, or by mail if required. One 
thing you may know, it is absolutely painless and 
harmless, if the operator is a specialist. Moses 
circumcized his two sons with a sharp stone he 
found in the wilderness. 

Abraham circumcized Ishmael when thirteen 
years of age. The children of Israel kept the com¬ 
mandment in Egyptian slavery, and even today 
every reform Jew is keeping this special command¬ 
ment, circumcision. In Poland, this circumcision 
day with the Hebrew people is greater than a wed¬ 
ding day, because everybody will see a wonderful 
guest coming. This is Elijah, the Prophet, and a 
chair is especially prepared for him next to the 
“Sandek” (the man who has the honor to hold 
the baby on his knees when circumcised). No one 
must sit on this seat of Elijah, it is holy. The 
mother dresses the baby especially for this occa¬ 
sion. The women prepare the baby for the man. 
When they are ready and everybody present, the 
baby is brought in on a soft pillow with roses all 
around, and is handed over to the Rabbi. As usual 
he is the “Sandek.” 

The “Mohel” (operator) begins the ceremony 
with a prayer. The father is asked if he gives 
over his child according to the law and covenant 
of God and Abraham, and he says, “Yes, I do.” 


34 


JUDAISM 


The “Mohel” takes the operation knife, which is 
sharper than a razor, and with his left hand finger 
and thumb takes gently the foreskin ((according 
to the size) and says, “I circumcize you as God 
has commanded our father Abraham to do in his 
name,” and all say “Amen,” and all is over. 
And by law he must suck the blood out and a 
special powder is put on it, and the baby is given 
over to the mother again. The men in the other 
room are eating, drinking and singing at the same 
time, until late at night. 

My circumcision was on Atonement day, and I 
was brought in the Synagogue and the circumcision 
was performed there for the whole congregation 
on this holy day. It must be performed on the 
eighth day and not put over one day longer, ex¬ 
cept the baby is not well. 

Three days later the baby is well and the 
wound can be washed. There is no conversion in 
becoming a Jew except circumcision. If a man is 
a Jew and not circumcized he is not counted in 
the Jewish nation, even if he is in the Jewish re¬ 
ligion and keeps the commandments and traditions. 
The foundation of Judaism is circumcision. The 
holiest and most honored commandment over all 
commandments is this covenant to the seed of 
Abraham. I know many Jews in Poland who are 
not circumcized, but they are counted very little 
in the Jewish community. 

I remember the circumcision party of my broth¬ 
er. I was only a boy of six years. When my 
father came to mother’s bed after the party left, 
he took in his arms the baby and tears were 
streaming on his cheeks, and he said, “My son! 
today you became a Jew. There is a long and 
thorny road before you, persecutions, condemna¬ 
tions and torture, and death will face you on ev- 


JUDAISM 35 

ery footstep of thy way. Remember, thou art the 
son of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Thy faith is 
trouble, sorrow and persecution. Be strong and 
faithful for our Father’s sake.” And he kissed 
the baby, and Mother wept half the day, and I 
cried. 

“The Hebrew Charity Institutions and Philan¬ 
thropists.” 

The Jewish nation is protected by two great 
powers, by unity and by faith, and for this reason 
you will not find many tramps or beggars. Every 
Jewish community has a charity club. When a 
Jew comes in a town and is penniless he goes to 
this institution and must prove that he is a Jew, 
and will get food and room for three days, and 
must look out for a job in this time. If he finds 
work it is all right. If not, he gets a train ticket 
to go and find work elsewhere. 

New York has the largest Hebrew charity in¬ 
stitution in the world. Thousands of poor Jews 
are provided with food, fuel, and even rent, free 
hospitals and free medical attention, even free 
]aying-in hospitals for women, and the poor women 
are provided with baby clothes and four weeks’ 
medical attention. There are free soup kitchen 
through the cold winter and free bread for the poor. 
The Hebrew community in every large city has a 
free loan office, where every poor Jew can get 
4>50 or $100 to make a start in life when he is 
down and out. He gets two or three securities, 
and he pays so much a w r eek or a month back on 
the money he took without any interest. 

Thousands of Jews have become rich through 
this “Gemilas Chasadim” (Charity Loan Office), 
and today this poor man who got rich is a first- 
class member to this charity. 


36 


JUDAISM 


The Hebrew believes in charity. This is his 
principal religion. “Zidoca, Tazil, Mimoves” 
(Charity will save you from death). The Hebrew 
must not refuse even a Gentile if he ask him for 
bread and bread for his children. The Hebrew 
charity organizations have taken care of every 
poor Jew in town and will not permit him (the 
Jew) to ask from the Christian Charity Institu¬ 
tions. The Hebrew has a free school in every 
large city for studying the Hebrew Bible and the 
Hebrew prayers, and in the little towns the Rabbi 
gives lessons to the Jewish children in Hebrew. 
For this reason the nation is still living and united 
together more than ever before. 

The Hebrew is democratic through and through 
and loves freedom and peace, and through this 
alone he has shown himself patriotic in the United 
States by giving 65,000 young men and close to 
a billion dollars for Liberty Bonds. He loves a 
nation of freedom and will give all he has if neces¬ 
sary to protect democracy. 

The greatest philanthropist amongst the Jews 
is Jacob Schiff. Millions of dollars have been sent 
by him and through him for the suffering Jews in 
Poland, and even today he is the head of the Jewish 
Charity organization in the United States. 

The late Baron Hirsch from Frankfurt has left 
his -entire fortune, forty million dollars, for the 
Jewish Colonization in Palestine, and for this 
money twenty-two -colonies had been established 
in Palestine before the war broke out, and these 
colonists prospered in agriculture until the Turks 
came and destroyed it all lately and killed many 
of the Jewish families in the last Palestine drive. 

Rice Bros., in St. Louis, two influential Jewish 
clothing manufacturers, have given $160,000.00 for 
the Jewish relief in Poland to save them from 


JUDAISM 


37 


starvation. The Jews in the United States have 
sent seven million dollars to the suffering Jews in 
Russia in the four years’ war, and the Zionists 
in the United States are on a drive for a billion 
dollars to take all the Jews out from the perse¬ 
cuted countries when Palestine opens its doors for 
them. 

Through their faith, love, and charity the Jewish 
nation will bloom again. Through their charities 
and brotherly love they will come home again, 
and God will punish the oppressors who oppressed 
Israel, and Israel will see the mistakes they have 
made in rejecting their Messiah. 

“Traditions.” 

The Jew has ten commandments to keep up 
and 613 traditions from the Rabbinical law. Many 
of the readers will say, “Where does he get all 
these traditions—from the Bible?” It is not the 
Bible alone which is holy to the Jewish nation. 
It is every book printed in the Hebrew language, 
just as holy as the Bible. The traditionalist said 
that on every Monday and Tuesday every man 
must fast these two days, and they are fasting. 
Why? Because Monday is holy. It is the third 
day from Saturday. Thursday is the third day 
from Monday and Jehovah is three, and that three 
is holy. The Hebrew must not cut his finger-nails 
on Thursday because they will begin to grow on 
the third day, which is Saturday, and Saturday 
is holy. Nothing must grow this day. So he 
cuts them on Friday. The finger-nails must not be 
thrown away on the floor or in the street. They 
must be placed in a paper, every bit of it, and 
when it is all finished, he must take three little 
pieces of wood, mix them up amongst the nails 
and throw them in the fire. Why? Because the 


38 


JUDAISM 


nails are connected to the body which belongs to 
God, and when the Angel in the grave will ask 
him before the resurrection, “Where is thy finger¬ 
nails. What have you done with them?” He 
will call the three pieces of wood as witnesses 
that he has burned them in the fire. But if he 
did not put in wood and wasted some of the nails 
on the floor or in the street, then the Angel may 
tell him to go and find them and not to come back 
till he has found them, and it may take thousands 
of years to find them. This is tradition, and he 
could not be resurrected until he brought the nails 
to the Angel. 

You must not touch the candle-stick on the 
table on Saturday. Why? Because if you won’t 
touch the candlestick you will not touch the 
candle, and if you do not touch the candle you 
will not light the candle. And it is written 
“Thou shalt not make a fire on Sabbath Day.” 
To protect you from making a fire, tradition made 
this command not to touch the candlestick. 

It is lawful to sit by the table wdth three 
men at every meal. A woman doesn’t count. Two 
men and a boy of 13 years of age is counted. 
Two men and a boy under 13 years of age is not 
counted. Every Hebrew boy becomes a man when 
13, and he (the boy) has to perform all the 613 
laws and traditions as in fasting and praying 
amongst the older people. 

It is unlawful to eat beef and to drink milk 
together or soon after the beef meal. The party 
must wait six hours after a beef dinner to drink 
milk or use butter. And one hour from a milk 
dinner to use beef, because it takes six hours 
to digest the beef and one hour to digest the milk. 
This is a Mosaic law covered with a tradition. 
“Thou shalt not cook a little goat in his mother’s 
milk.” 


JUDAISM 


39 


Before finishing his morning prayer he must 
spit out three times on the floor, or pretend to 
spit, that all evil may go out from him. Every 
Hebrew must have a piece of parchment nailed 
to the door post and a Hebrew scripture must be 
written on it. This is to keep Satan out of the 
room, and no Hebrew will pass over a door-step 
if one of these parchments is not on his door post. 
When a woman is married she must have her hair 
cut off close to her scalp and put on a wig of false 
hair, and on her marriage day this haircut is 
performed, because long hair is the beauty of a 
woman and by cutting it off her head she loses 
her beauty. It is written “Thou shaft not covet 
thy neighbor’s wife.” 

It is lawful for every Hebrew to be punished 
and strapped for his sins which he has done 
through the year. Atonement Eve will show us 
how it is done. Before having his last fasting 
meal on Atonement Eve he goes to the Synagague 
for prayer. In the corridor of the Snyagogue, 
before entering into the Auditorium, there are 
four or five men in waiting with long black 
straps for anyone who wishes to be strapped, 
thirty-nine straps to be slashed on his back when 
he lays with his face to the floor, and every strap¬ 
per gets paid more or less from the man he 
straps. 

It is necessary that some one must suffer and 
pay with his life for the sins of the body. For 
this reason everybody provides himself with a 
rooster for a man and a hen for a woman on 
Atonement Eve. And this is how it is done: 
Father gets together his boys and holds a big 
white rooster by his feet. All heads are close 
together and father holds the rooster over every 
head and says, “All the sins I have done this 


40 


JUDAISM 


year, and my children ’s sins, and the sins from 
all Israel, shall go in the rooster, and thy life 
shall be sacrificed, to die for us and for our sins. ” 
And the wife does the same with a hen for her 
girls. Then comes the killer and kills the birds, 
and the wife takes off the feathers and cleans 
it and cook it, and they eat it all back again— 
the rooster, the hen and the sins. (Tradition.) 

It is unlawful for men and women to eat to¬ 
gether at one table. During eating time at the 
table nothing must be spoken but Hebrew, law 
and the scriptures, in Hebrew. 

You must not blow out a candle on Saturday 
or make a fire this day or cook food or carry 
around anything in your pocket, or talk business 
or make long walks, or break anything. For this 
day is holy. 

Honor to parents and older people is the great¬ 
est law of the Hebrew. To honor thy father 
and mother is the greatest commandment of the 
Hebrew. I know an old man 70 years of age 
He had a son 50 years old. and that 50 year 
old man had a son 30 years old, and the grand¬ 
father came to visit his son, and the grandson 
gave the old man a chair to sit down. The 
father called his son “Murderer” and hit him in 
the face and said: “You have robbed me of a 
duty and a commandment. It was my duty to 
give my father a chair, not you.” And the 
father of the young son wept and prayed to God 
for forgiveness. It shows how loyal the Hebrews 
are to keep the law and commandments. A Hebrew 
will never stand with a bare head before a man, 
not even for a king. He may take off his hat 
but will still have another little cap on top of 
his head (and many Jews have lost their lives 
through this tradition). The Hebrew must not 


JUDAISM 


41 


kneel down and pray to God without a hat or 
cap on his head. It is unlawful to do this. God 
is his father and he must not take off his hat 
for his father. Every Hebrew must be baptized 
before the morning prayer. 

The Hebrew School. 

Every boy wdien three or four years old begins 
to go to “Chaider” (School). Every community 
has a teacher. He (the teacher) rents a room 
for 12 or 15 children to be present. There is one 
long table in the middle of the room with benches 
around three parts of the table and one chair at 
one end, which is for the teacher. The first time 
a child is brought in Chaider it is very interest¬ 
ing and comical. The child is wrapped in the 
holy robe and carried by the father in to Chaider. 
The old teacher (generally the teacher is an old 
man), with his long white beard and holy robe, 
takes the child on his knee with a kind and gentle 
smile to get the confidence of the child, then 
opens the Hebrew 7 Prayer Book to show him the 
alphabet, and he tells the child all kinds of jokes 
and fairy stories. The child becomes used to the 
old man and begins to love the teacher. Father 
is watching all the time behind the teacher. The 
first lesson begins. “Now, little boy,” say teacher, 
“do you know 7 that the angels are on the top 
of the roof and are looking dow 7 n through this 
hole?” (and he slums him a hole in the ceiling). 
The boy looks up and sees the hole and says, 
“Yes, I can see it.” “You see,” says the teacher, 
“if you w 7 ill be a good boy and learn the holy 
words, he (the angel) will give you many good 
things through this little hole. Now say ‘Alef’ 
(a).” The boys says “Alef.” “Can you see 
howr the Alef looks, and will you not forget it?” 


42 


JUDAISM 


“Say it again,” and the boy says it again and 
again, and a big bag of candy falls on the top 
of the book. The child blushes and the teacher 
looks innocently up to the hole in the ceiling 
and the boy looks up to the ceiling with his little 
heart beating fast, and the teacher says: “The 
angels have thrown this to you from this little 
hole.” And the child wonders how a big bag 
of candy can go through this little hole, but it 
is all possible, for angels, but in fact father has 
thrown this from behind the teacher. The child 
will come home with the greatest desire to go 
back and get more candy, and every time he 
knows the lesson he gets candy, and something 
more than that. 

After he is in school for six months and can 
read Hebrew, everything changes. Teacher is no 
more kind to him. He must go on, and on, to 
know and fulfill the teacher’s command. Father 
has nothing to do with the boys when in school. 
All is left to the teacher. The boy is not afraid 
of any man in his town but his teacher. The 
least mistake he makes at home, in the street 
or in school, he will get punished by the teacher, 
and father must not interfere as long as the boy 
is under the control of the teacher. 

School time is from 9:00 a. m. till 12:00 noon, 
and he has one hour for lunch or play, and again 
from 1:00 p. m. till 7:30 or 8:00 o’clock in the 
evening. The boy studies very hard, and he must 
know his lesson, and nobody nust help him. He 
studies in the presence of the teacher, and if he 
makes a mistake, he (the teacher) will twist his 
ears and make a corkscrew out of them. The 
boy cannot go out and play in school time. He 
brings a sandwich from home for the afternoon 


JUDAISM 43 

school, and eats his supper when he comes home 
late. 

Friday is a half day school, but there is plenty 
to do at home. He must go through the songs 
of Solomon. He must sing over the Bible Lesson 
from the whole week study. (The Hebrew doesn’t 
read the Bible, he sings the Bible.) Every word 
in the Hebrew Bible has a singing note, and the 
teacher studies the melody with the boy at the 
same time when reading. When the boy has all 
finished the Friday afternoon reading, he has to 
go to the Synogogue because it is Sabbath evening. 
The teacher is in the Synagogue, and the boy has 
to behave. “How was my boy last w r eek, teacher?” 
asks father in the presence of the boy. The boj 
is waiting for his verdict, and with a pitiful smile 
he looks up on the teacher and both pair of eyes 
are meeting. If the teacher is in a good humor 
he will say, “Well! he was not so bad!” And 
if the teacher says “Bad; very bad!” God have 
mercy on that poor boy. He will have to go to 
bed without supper, and get a good thrashing 
besides. 

The children are* brought up very strictly, and 
under so-called German discipline; but they arc 
not Germans, thank God. Teacher, father, mother, 
and God, all four are very highly respected (espe¬ 
cially teacher). The Christians think the Jew 
has only to study the Old Testament and Talmud. 
The Old Testament is the easiest book for the 
boy to study. The principle thing is Talmud. 
The Talmud is not one book. It is a whole library. 
Jt contains 24 text-books, each 16 by 8 inches. 
The books are printed in Chaldean and Aramaic 
languages. First, he has to translate into Hebrew 
and Jewish, and study the meaning of the old 
Rabbinical mind. It has hundreds of comment- 


44 


JUDAISM 


aries from many Rabbis who do not agree with the 
questions and answers of the Rabbis of old. And 
then comes a discussion of 20 pages to go through 
to study the arguments of both parties, the Tal- 
mudical and Rabbinical, and he (the student) has 
to find out which party is right, or which one 
agrees with the teacher’s judgment. The Talmud 
could not be translated in any language because 
it is all mind training. It may take three months 
to get the right result on one chapter. 

When 13 years of age the boy is brought in 
the Synagogue and taken on the pulpit and must 
give his Talmudical lecture (Drosche), and then 
he is a Hebrew in full and is counted among the 
grown-up men. If the boy is well learned and 
he knows more than an old Hebrew, everybody 
will give him the greatest respect, and he will be 
called Rabbi, even if he is not. 

I know a man, a great Talmudist, and the great¬ 
est Hebrew scholar in his time. His name is 
Rabbi Katz. I remember when he was a boy of 
15 years of age his father used to call him Rabbi; 
and his father used to stand up when taking to 
him. 

I remember when he used to pass through the 
aisles in the Synagogue to go to the front seat 
where it was his place to go, everybody in the Syna- 
gague used to stand up before him till he came to 
his seat and sat down. 

The Hebrew doesn’t respect and honor the 
man, but the knowledge and wisdom and the holi¬ 
ness of the Hebrew within the man. 

Every man who knows the Talmud is provided 
and protected by the Jewish nation forever. 


The Chasidim 

This is a sect in the Jewish nation who are 
called the Chasidim (the select). They have a 

Rabbi out of their own people and he is very 

holy and is the intercessor for his sect to God, 
like the Pope to the Catholics. Not many of the 
Misnagdim (liberal Jews) have the honor to speak 
to him or see him. This Rabbi has so many 
assistants that they could not be counted. Be¬ 
fore you can see the Rabbi you have to go through 
the army of these assistants, and every one of 
them wants to live, and every one expects some¬ 
thing from you. And besides, the Rabbi himself 
wants to live, and all are getting “Nedoves” 

(gifts). The first time I came to the Rabbi 

before I left for the University for a blessing, 
my father, also a “Chasid” and well known by 
the Rabbi’s Schamasim (assistants), took me straight 
in to him. My father was left the other side of the 
door and I went in. I found the Rabbi talking 
and swimming with his hands in the air, but 
did not see any strangers in the room, only him¬ 
self. He stood up and took out a book from his 
library and ran with the book to the table, opened 
it, and said, “You see! There it is. And you 
cannot argue with me. You have to discuss this 
matter over with ‘Ha Scharn Jesborach’ (God), 
and He wdll tell you that I am right.” After 
fifteen minutes standing in the corner and my 
heart beating fast in me for fear, and realizing 
that I w^as in his presence and he was talking 
to the Angels—having a great argument with 
the “Schichimo,” I lost control. “What do you 
w^ant, son of Benzion (my father’s name) f ” Iheard a 
heavy baritone voice saying, meaning me, “Wha-t 


46 


JUDAISM 

do you want? Don't come close to me. Say, 
what do you want?” 

'Holy Rabbi,” said I, ''my father sent me to 
get blessed before I leave town,” said I with a 
trembling voice. "Where are you going, my 
son?” said his holiness. "I am going to study 
to become a Rabbi,” said I. "God will bless 
you, and you will become all you have desired. 
Take this ‘Cameia’ and it will give you all the 
blessing God has prepared for you,” and he handed 
me a three-cornered piece of parchment with a 
little hole in one corner, meaning I should carry 
this around my neck all my life. 

I ran out into the corridor which was full of 
people waiting to see him and be blessed. I 
showed the Cameia to father and to many others 
and was sure that I would become a Rabbi, and 
all the people were sure that Benzion’s son would 
become a Rabbi—that I went on a solid founda¬ 
tion to my new Rabbinical job. (My father paid 
the Rabbi 50 rubles for this cameia.) 

The Chasidisher Rabbi is the greatest power 
among the Chasidim. He is not elected by the 
congregation and does not have to go through 
a Hebrew schooling. The title is handed down 
from father to son, and the first-born son of a 
Rabbi inherits the position. If there is no son 
the Rabbi’s brother gets the crown. If there is 
no brother, a new Rabbi is elected from the con¬ 
gregation. There are close to two million Chasidim 
in the Jewish nation and there are many Rabbis 
of this kind. 

Every large city and large Chasidim community 
has a Rabbi. The greatest Rabbi is the Bar- 
dichuwer. (Bardichuv is a large Russian town 
with a large Jewish population.) He has 750,000 
followers, and people say he is the richest man 
among all the Jews, and his followers are the 


JUDAISM 47 

poorest people of all the Jews. A “Chasid’’ will 
sell his horse or cow and will go to the Rabbi 
once a year to give him a “pidion” (purse). A 
Chasid will save every penny from the daily food 
for his Rabbi, because he will surely be blessed 
by him, and the blessing comes from God to the 
Rabbi. 

When a Chasid is sick he goes to the Rabbi 
for healing. When a women is childless she 
goes to the Rabbi for a blessing that she may 
be fruitful. (Hundreds of the women come to 
the Rabbi daily with this complaint.) 

When a Chasid has to leave town because he 
cannot make a living, he goes to the Rabbi for 
advice where to go and what to do. When a 
husband cannot live happily with his wife and 
they cannot agree, he goes to the Rabbi and asks 
him to make her obey him. (By law the woman 
must obey the husband.) And every time you 
come to the Rabbi you will find him arguing with 
the Angels over something or having a gentle, 
conversation with His Holy Name Jehovah, per¬ 
sonally. 

The “Chasidim” have their own synagogue, 
and the people who don’t know the ways of a. 
Chasid, and come into the Synagogue the first, 
time might think that it is a lunatic asylum.. 
Everybody is running around, one past the other 
with a push. Everybody is praying at he same, 
time. Everybody is hollering and singing and 
lifting their hands up in the air, pulling the hair 
from the head and jumping in every direction. 
He stands with his face to the wall for a moment 
and will make all kinds of movements, at the same 
time swinging his body in different directions. 

After two hours’ exercising one man will stand 
up on a seat and will say: “Has anyone a memor¬ 
ial day today?” One will say: “I,” and he is 


48 


JUDAISM 


taken from the midst of the crowd and lifted 
on a table, and the crowd will holler, “A drink 
of whiskey, let him give a drink of whiskey, ’ ’ 
and he will send for a bottle of whiskey and a 
little glass, and everybody has a drop with a 
piece of cake, as drinking “Lechaim” means “We 
shall live/’ 

The Chasid wears a long silk robe, long silk 
stocking, and no pants and slippers, with a belt 
around his waist. He is in the buying and sell¬ 
ing business, and very seldom you will find a 
Chasid a tradesman. It is a shame for him to 
give his daughter to a shoemaker or a tailor, 
and he lives solely by faith, and God always 
provides for him. 

The Hebrew Butcher. 

The Jewish people have their own butcher, and 
a butcher cannot be anyone who wants to open 
a butcher shop. He must have permission from 
the Rabbi, and the Rabbi has to know him to 
be a trustworthy Jew that will not break the 
law in “Schchito” (killing the cattle). There 
are over fifty laws to follow in killing and pre¬ 
paring the beef until it comes to the butcher, 
and even after the women have brought the beef 
home they have to prepare it by law before they 
can place it in the pot for cooking. 

The cow must be tied with all four legs to¬ 
gether, with a rope, and she must not be handled 
rough. The cow is thrown on the floor or the 
ground and her head is turned with her throat 
up. The rabbi has a “ChaRf” (a blade) from 
eight to nine inches long with a short handle. 
This knife is sharper than a razor and is especially 
manufactured for this purpose. The Rabbi who 
kills must be a well-known Hebrew, and must 


JUDAISM 49 

study the killing law for many years until he 
gets permission from the congregational Rabbi 
that he is in good standing to take care of this 
work, and he, the killer, gets the engagements 
by any large community for a wage. 

Before killing, the “Chalef” must be examin¬ 
ed and prepared. He holds tight with his left 
hand the cow’s throat and goes gently over that 
place w r ith the “Chalef,” and the whole throat 
of the cow must be cut through from ear to ear. 
The man who holds the head holds it until all 
the blood has run out and there is no more life 
left. The cow is cut open and the lungs are 
taken out and brought into a room and placed 
on a table, where a man blows up through the 
esophagus until the lungs cannot become any 
larger, then the killer examines the lungs all 
around the corners. If the corners are blistered, 
or bubbles are formed, then the cow cannot be 
used for the Jewish butcher, because the cow 
has been sick or has had a disease. Any other 
trouble can be detected in this way. If the lungs 
do not blister at the corners, then the cow is 
“kosher,’-’ clean to eat. Many times the Jews 
have to kill three or four cows to get one good 
one which is fit to eat, and in Poland in a little 
town where on Friday there is only one cow 
killed to get meat for Saturday, if a cow is 
“traife” or unclean, then all the Jews from this 
town have to be without meat on Saturday and 
the Hebrew must have beef on Sabbath by law. 

The cattle can only be used to the end of 
the ribs, that is, the upper half. The lower half 
is sold to the Gentiles. The reason is, the Jew 
must not eat the veins, and in the upper half 
of the cow the veins are exposed so that they 
can be taken out easily, and there is a special 


50 


JUDAISM 


man who knows where every vein is placed. But 
the bottom or lower half is nearly all veins, and 
it is hard to take them out, and for this reason 
the Hebrew leaves it alone and doesn’t use it. 
He may use the lower half if all the veins are 
taken out. 

The lungs, the liver, the head and the four feet 
are used by the Jew when the cow is clean and 
well. 

The Jewdsh women in Russia make the finest 
meal out of the feet. The poor families are pro¬ 
vided with meat on Saturday. Each family gets 
one foot and pays 15 “copikes” (7% cents) for 
it, and the whole family has plenty to eat. 

The butcher has to pay to the congregation 
so much a year for a permit to open a butcher 
shop. There are many permits from the Rabbi 
to many religious Jewish butchers, and there are 
many applications for a Jewish butchershop, and 
the one who pays the most to the congregation 
gets the butchershop, because there must be only 
one butchershop to a community. 

When a woman brings home the beef from the 
butcher, she must place it in water for one hour. 
At the end of the hour she puts it on a salt 
board and sprinkles much salt over it, and it 
must remain under the salt for thirty minutes. 
Then she puts it in the water and washes and 
cleans it, ready for cooking. This shows us that 
the Jew does not use blood. Every drop of blood 
is taken out before it can be used for the Jewish 
table. Blood is strictly forbidden by the law, and 
even when the cattle is clean and the meat is 
clean, the blood is unclean. 

In the year 1500 many thousands of Jews 
were put to death in “Teso Eslar” Greece, when 
the Greek Catholics had accused the Jewish popu- 


JUDAISM 


51 


] at ion that they were using blood from Christian 
children for Passover cakes; and on Passover Day 
it having been found in the Jewish neighborhood 
a Christian child died the day before Easter, 
the Christians gave out the report that the Jews 
had killed the child and used its blood for the 
Easter holiday. Twelve thousand Jews were 
brought to death in one week as a result of the 
false accusation, and the Jewish Rabbi and the 
prominent Jews from the Synagogue were brought 
before the judges and were found guilty and 
burned in the market place. 

Not long ago you will all remember the case 
of Mendel Bailes, in Russia, and his great trial, 
having been accused of killing a Russian boy 
thirteen years of age and using his blood for 
Passover cakes. Finally it was proven that the, 
boy’s own mother had killed him and placed the 
blame on the Jews for the sake of revenge be¬ 
cause of her hatred of them. Blood is forbidden 
for use under any circumstances by the Talmud- 
ical and Rabinnical law, and for this alone the 
blood accusations the Jews are much against Chris¬ 
tianity. 


The Synagogue 

The Jew in Poland has two prayer houses— 
one is for Saturday and holidays only, called 
the Synagogue, and the other for week days, call¬ 
ed “Bit Hamedrosh” (the House of Study). This 
Bit Hamedrosh is always full of people, and you 
will find young men studying the Tamud and 
Misne. These young men are preparing for the 
University for special training as teacher, or a 
“Socet” (who kills the cattle), or sometimes for 
getting a rich father-in-law. 

The Bit Hamedrosh never closes its doors. If 
a poor stranger comes into town during the night, 
he goes in Bit Hamedrosh and is protected from 
’cold and rain, and will always get a meal from 
the “shames” (housekeeper) and a pillow for 
his head. Every Jew finds himself at home when 
there, and the melody from different voices, some 
praying, someone singing psalms, and someone the 
melody of study. 

When the child is sick the father goes in Bit 
Hamedrosh and opens the ark where the Penta¬ 
teuch is and weeps and cries to God for healing, 
and many Jews in Bit Hamedrosh are joining 
him in his prayer, and the psalmist becomes the 
Great Doctor. And when the wife or husband 
is sick, ten men are called by the Rabbi, and 
the Rabbi as a leader, all going along with their 
holy robes, open the ark and prayer begins in a 
loud voice, while money is offered to the poor 
and needy. In Bit Hamedrosh are conducted all 
the business affairs of the Jews, and all the elec¬ 
tions for the year, high officials. First the elec¬ 
tion for a President, “Gabe,” second a “Sames” 


53 


JUDAISM 

(the caretaker over both houses), or a “Mohel,” 
a circumciser. The “Gabe” is picked out as 
the richest Jew in town, that he may have money 
enough to pay the debts when behind in collec¬ 
tions. The “Gabe” pays the Rabbi his salary, 
and the poor are dependent upon the “Gabe” 
in the community for charity, and the “Gabe” 
has to be responsible for the orphans and to 
keep the widows and old men, and for the Hebrew 
free school (Talmud Tora). All belong to him 
to be taken care of. And this is the reason a 
rich man is elected for the job. 

Saturday morning the business begins in the 
presence of the Holy Pentateuch (Tora). The 
Pentateuch is taken out from the ark and placed 
on the pulpit. The Hebrew pulpit stands in the 
middle of the auditorium. The Rabbi goes around 
the pulpit with the Pentateuch on his arms and 
sings, and every Jew he passes kisses the Penta¬ 
teuch. 

When the cover is taken off, the singer, 
“Chasem,” calls up first a Cohen (from the 
tribe of Aaron) to hear the reading in his pres¬ 
ence six verses from the chapter. Seven men 
must be called on the pulpit, one at a time, to 
hear the singer read. Second comes a Levy 
(from the tribe of Moses), and the other five are 
from the Jewish congregation (from the tribe of 
Judah). It is expected from everyone to give 
a* donation for some institution, or to the Presi¬ 
dent to cover the expenses for the need of the 
community. For this donation the Rabbi blesses 
him in the presence of the congregation. Large 
sums of money are collected by these donations 
through the year, and it is used for fuel and 
lights to keep the Synagogue in good order and 
to pay the salary of the assistants. Every Jew, 


54 


JUDAISM 


on Memorial Day, which comes once a year, 
donates some money to the Synagogue for the 
soul of his parents. 

The Hebrew does not carry money on Satur¬ 
day. He may offer $1000 on Saturday and will 
pay the next day his promise, and is greatly 
honored by the Jews when his offering is a 
large amount. 

The Hope of Israel. 

What is the Jew’s future and what is his 
belief and religion, and foundation of religion? 

The foundation of Judaism is: First, the Mes¬ 
siah to come, not the one who has been, but 
the one who has to come, a king, a ruler over 
the nation, and to be ruled under the command 
of God and the Law of Moses. Second, to possess 
his Holy Land again with the Holy City of Jerus¬ 
alem as a center. His look-out is for the Temple, 
for the Priesthood and the Levys and the King¬ 
dom of David. 

The Jew says that Jesus was not from David 
but from Joseph, and the Messiah must come 
from David. He did not expect a Messiah from 
a carpenter, but from a king, and when Jesus 
came there was no Jewish king ruling. The 
Jewish nation is not to blame when they have 
rejected Jesus. It was the tradition, the law 
and the times which kept him away from acknowl¬ 
edging Jesus. Christ came in time, but the 
Jews expect from Him to establish a Jewish king¬ 
dom, and Jesus did not follow the Rabbinical law, 
and He was rejected by the majority of the nation. 

The Jew says Jesus did more harm to the 
Jews than good, but the Jews do not understand 
even today that it was not Jesus who did the 
harm to the Jews, it was the Jew who did harm 


JUDAISM 


55 


to himself in rejecting Jesns. It is not the 
Jews alone who were condemned by rejecting 
Christ. Everyone is condemned—Gentiles the 
same as Jews. Christ did not make the Jewish 
nation an example. The Jewish nation has suf¬ 
fered very much, it is true, but other nations 
have suffered more than the Jews. Where is 
Babylon and Rome. Where is Egypt and Persia? 
Where is Spain in her glory and the great nation 
of Russia? Where are the Bible tribes or nations? 
But the Jew is still here, and is a living evidence 
for Christ and His promise. 

The hope of Israel is the Messiah, and Israel 
is waiting for Him today more than ever before. 
The Jew is waiting for Palestine and he will get 
it, and by entering into Jerusalem will the Jewish 
nation realize that someone else is to come? Will 
the Jew receive Him this time? Will the Jews 
all know Him, the one they have rejected, when 
He stands before them again? Yes, they will, 
because all Israel shall be saved, is written, and 
God will forgive. 


The Jewish Missionary Work 
Among the Jews 

It seems to be so easy for any Jew to be¬ 
come a Christian or to follow the law of freedom 
into Christ. It looks like the Jews are missing 
all the good there is prepared for them. But to 
know Christianity the people have to study Juda¬ 
ism first. The Russian Jew knows only one Chris¬ 
tianity, and this is Greek Catholicism, or, better 
said, “Kill the Jew!” 

I remember eight years before my conversion 
a Jewish missionary came into my house with a 
New Testament in the Hebrew language, and hand¬ 
ed it to me saying, “Read this and it will tell 
you all about your rejected Messiah.” I kicked 
him out of my room and insulted him and pushed 
him downstairs. I could never forget his smile 
after getting up from the floor at the foot of 
the stairs. I could never forget his gentle man¬ 
ner after the insult I had given him, and he said, 
“God of Israel, forgive him,” and repeated this 
twice and walked away with a prayer for me. 
I could not rest peacefully after this for weeks. 
How humble and true this man acted for his 
principle and belief in Christ, like an obedient 
servant to his Master. He bowed his head to me 
and said, “Some day you will, some day you will.” 
I haven’t seen him since, and maybe he gave his 
life for Christ, as a martyr. 

The Jewish missionary has a lot to go through. 
A Jewish missionary is in danger every day in 


JUDAISM 


57 


the week. He has to go through all the insults, 
persecutions and condemnation. He speaks to a 
Jew with respect and honor, and must know to 
answer all the questions presented to him. He 
must be a learned Jew or a Hebrew, and well 
versed in the Old Testament. Jesus must be 
shown to the Jew from the Old Testament be¬ 
cause the Jews do not believe in the New Testa¬ 
ment. And there are a lot of questions to ask. 
If the missionary can satisfy the Hebrew with his 
answers, the Jew will respect him and talk to 
him, and if not, he will call him a hypocrite, liar, 
and will even spit in his face. Protestantism is 
very little known by the Jew, and even in America 
he believes that all the Christians are Jewish 
enemies. 

And what makes the Jew become a mission¬ 
ary? Has he got a purpose in it? Is there any 
money in it? No! brother. No Jew or Hebrew 
will sell himself or his God for money. The 
Hebrew missionary can get a good salary in any 
Jewish communitj^ as a teacher or adviser and 
will be more honored by the Jews than by Chris¬ 
tians. 

I know two Hebrew missionaries in America 
going along from town to town giving out New 
Testaments to the Jewish homes, and they are 
starving; but you will never see them discouraged 
or in trouble. I have met one of these men in 
Billings, Montana, and he was so glad to meet 
me that he cried for joy and kissed me. I asked 
him, * * How are you getting along?” He said: 
“Well! Christ liveth in me.” I said: “Can I 
be of any help to you, brother?” because I have 
seen he needs something. He said: “I will only ask 
one thing of you; give me a meal.” “A meal,” 
I said, “have you no money to live on, even 


58 


JUDAISM 


for a meal?” And he said: “But I live. What 
is the difference? I live. The glory of Israel 
will give us the reward.” I said: “How long 
will you be here?” He answered: “One week.” 
I took him in the hotel and paid for a room and 
left him five dollars. Then I left. And I said 
to myself, “What is he a missionary for?” 

Oh, Christians! Is it not Christ, the one who 
sent Paul to become a missionary to the Gentiles? 
As in the beginning so is He today. There is 
no difference in time Whenever God is calling, 
the soul must answer and obey. Fifteen hundred 
Jewish missionaries are missing in 1900 years. 
Fifteen hundred Jews have answered the call and 
nobody knows what became of them.! “Go and 
preach My gospel to all creatures,” said He, “and 
carry the cross for My sake.” 

I have noticed many times the reception a 
Jewish missionary receives in a Christian town. 
The suspicion is still in many hearts of the Chris- 
tion people that the Jew is out for a purpose. 
And the Jewish missionary work has been much 
overlooked by our Christian nations. Mission¬ 
aries have been sent to all nations in every part 
of the globe. Millions of dollars are spent every 
year for this great institution to make the nations 
acknowledge Christ. But did the Christians send 
any to the Jews? No! Jesus Himself sent the 
Hebrew" to the Hebrew. Christ is calling men 
from the Jewdsh nation to do the missionary work, 
and he (the Jew) has to go. 

I am a missionary and a Jew T . I am going 
through all the experience with the others. I 
know, I feel, I hear. The voice is calling. 1 
could not say no. I don’t want to say no. Be¬ 
cause it is my pleasure to please my God and 
Saviour, and my Father is doing all the rest. 


JUDAISM 


59 


How does a Jew preach the gospel to a Jew? 
And how does the Jewish missionary enter into 
a Jewish home? 

First, he must become acquainted with the 
family or man. The missionary must find out 
the need of the Jew, and try to provide for him 
the necessities for his household. For instance, 
a pair of shoes for the baby, sacks of coal for 
the kitchen, a secondhand suit for the husband, 
and sometimes a basket of food, when in need. 
The Jewish missionary doesn’t go to the rich 
people. The poor are the only ones he can reach, 
and one poor man recommends the other poor man 
to the missionary, and the other poor man will 
try to find me because he is in need, and will 
call me in his house to become friends. After- 
many weeks of friendship I will bring him in a 
pamphlet to read, or a missionary newspaper, or 
any other Christian book, and ask him to read, 
and after I will give him a New Testament to 
read, and many weeks after I will invite him 
to hear a good sermon on Sunday in the church 
and will introduce him to the pastor on Sunday 
noon. The pastor is kind to him and will ask 
him to come again, and the wife and the chil¬ 
dren will ask father to go again in this fine and 
friendly church. Well, step by step the Jew 
will become a Christian and a member of the 
church. 

. This is the way the Jewish missionary is work¬ 
ing for Christ’s sake, and the work is still going 
on. The Jewish missionaries have converted in 
1900 years one million Jews all over the world 
to every sect and denomination in the Christian 
religion. The missionary converts the Jew to 
Christ, and the Jew may belong afterward to 
any denomination he chooses, as long as he be- 


60 


JUDAISM 


lieves that Christ was the Messiah. The mis¬ 
sionary must get a Jew who is well learned in 
the Hebrew or five books of Moses and the prophets, 
for an ignorant Jew is very hard to converse with 
and make him reason. The American Jews are the 
hardest people to talk to, because they do not 
believe in anything but a good time for them¬ 
selves, and don’t care about Judaism or Chris¬ 
tianity. He is more Ingersol than anything else. 

'‘My Conversion and Persecution.” 

To my friends and brothers in the Christian 
faith I am writing my conversion as a testimony 
for Christ. I am speaking in His Name, and 
His Name is very dear and holy to me. I am 
sending these words out to the world as I am sent 
by Him to the world, as a Jewish missionary 
and a Hebrew Rabbi from the Orthodox faith. I 
am not exaggerating in any of my statements. 

In the year 1913, on the 16th day of Decem¬ 
ber, I was sitting in my study preparing a lesson 
for the congregation which I was to give on the 
morrow at 9:00 o ’clock in the morning. It was 
12:00 midnight. Every one of my household was 
asleep. Everything was in quietness when I 
heard a voice speaking to me. I could not un¬ 
derstand what it said, but it was speaking con¬ 
tinuously. I thought someone might be in the 
front room. I went to see with a lamp in my 
hand, but could not see anybody. I came back 
to my desk and saw before me letters in Hebrew: 

44 Jesus of Nazareth,” and I could see it in every 
corner and place in the room. I began to rub 
my eyes, and thought it might be from sitting 
up too long and much hard work. But it would 
not leave me. It kept on for five minutes or 
more until it left me. After one hour I went 


JUDAISM 


61 

to bed, and even in my sleep I could see the 
same words. I had a very restless night and got 
up later than ever before. It w T as halfpast seven. 
I went to the Synagogue and the people were wait¬ 
ing for me to begin the morning prayer. I was pray- 
ing, but my heart was beating fast all the time. 
I could not get control over my restlessness. I 
felt that something would happen, but didn’t know 
what. I began to think my nation would be in 
trouble or that something else would came upon 
the town. It pressed me so hard that tears came 
into my eyes. 

After my prayer the congregation waited for me 
to go in the pulpit for my lecture, and there 
were many strangers in the prayer house, strangers 
from other towns, and all gathered around the 
pulpit closer to hear. I came up and gave a 
blessing as usual and tried to begin, but no words 
came from me. For a moment I was in silence, 
when I said, “I have seen in writing last night 
that Jesus of Nazareth is our promised Messiah.” 
I did not finish all I w T anted to say when one 
of my congregation jumped up and slapped me 
in the face, and the rest of them followed. I 
had been a Rabbi for eighteen years under several 
congregations and in several towns and countries. 
This was my longest term in which I had ever 
served in a town. 

They pulled me off the pulpit and cursed and 
swore and beat me, and even pulled me through 
the street to my home. 

My wife was just ready to make my break¬ 
fast when I was pulled into my home and the 
people said to my wife: “There is your husband, 
our hypocritical Rabbi. He has become a Chris- 
tion. ” And all the bystanders hissed me, and 
some spat in my face. “ Throw him out in the 


62 


JUDAISM 


street,’’ cried the crowd. My wife was fainting 
and the women trying to bring her to herself. 
My children were crying. They did not under¬ 
stand what was going on in the house. 

They pulled me out in the street and said: 
“Go to hell, and don’t you come here again. Wo 
will kill you.” 

I walked out of town but could not go far 
because it was freezing and I had not many clothes 
on me and it was a long way to a town. I was 
hungry and went into a Christian home (where 
I had never been in my life before), and the 
woman gave me some bread and milk. The 

woman did not know what had happened in town 
(the woman knew who I was). I was in her 

home until dark and went into town to go 

home. When I came to my house,' everything 
was dark around. I knocked on the door. My 
wife came out and saw me alid cried out: “Go 
away! Go away! I don’t know you and 1 

don’t want to know you!” and closed the door 
before me. I stood there for a moment when 
the door opened again and my son Reuben, a 
boy of 18 years of age, strong and healthy, came 
out and hit me a hard blow in the face, and said, 
“Go away, you dog. I have no father. He is 
dead.” 

I went out to the fuel house in the back yard 
and stayed through the night. I found some 
sacks to cover myself up, but I could not 
sleep one moment. I knew what was to come 
for me in the future, but I could not forget the 
night before when I had seen the words: “Jesus 
of Nazareth.” I kept thinking over and over 
again through the night, and I could not come 
to a conclusion. My heart was heavy within 


JUDAISM 63 

me and troubled, and it was so cold the heavy 
frost was cutting my flesh like needles. 

It is hard, brothers, very hard to live the life 
of a Jew and be persecuted by the so-called Chris¬ 
tians. But how much harder it is for a Jew 
to become a Christian and be condemned by the 
people who have loved and honored him. * It is 
all right when everything is over and forgotten. 
All is well when the suffering is over. But the 
wound is still there; a memory, a glimpse, a 
long look in the past, and it reminds you of 
your home, your wife, your children, where they 
are and what they are doing. 

Then comes the Christ spirit and reminds you 
of a duty and all is forgotten; the honor, the 
home, the wife, the children, and you become 
a little child, and all troubles are blotted out. 

Now perhaps you will ask, Did I become & 
Christian that night, or did the Jews accuse me 
of being a Christian that night? I did not know 
even the meaning of Christianity. I did not 
say one word about Christianity. I only said 
that I had seen the words “Jesus of Nazareth.’’ 
The truth was I wanted to say that He must be 
the Messiah of the Jews. But they gave me no 
chance to finish my words, and threw me right 
out. They accused me of believing in the Christ 
all the time, even in my Rabbinical position and 
worked under the mask of Judaism. 

• The morning after I was brought before the 
Rabbi Zion. (In one town there may be two or 
three Rabbis under different names.) In the pres¬ 
ence of ten prominent Hebrews from the city -T was 
asked by the Rabbi the meaning of my expression 
yesterday regarding Jesus of Nazareth. 

I answered and said: “I think we are reject¬ 
ing the Messiah who lived 1900 years ago, be- 


64 


JUDAISM 


cause I have heard a voice speaking to me and I 
have seen His name in my presence and believe 
that He is the Messiah. ” 

The people in the room began to get restless, 
and the Rabbi has seen that much harm would be 
done to me, and said: “I would not like to judge 
you, because we live under other nations. But 
I curse you out from the nation of Israel and 
thou art no more among the living in our com¬ 
munity.” And several spat in my face and 
pushed me out of the room. 

It was noon-day when I came out. There 
stood before me many men and women and 
children, and they all hissed me and pulled at 
me and pushed me, and began to throw stones 
at me, and I ran, and the children ran after me, 
and everybody laughed at me, and I ran without 
thinking where I was going. I ran as if a 
fire were following me. My son ran after me. 
When I looked around and saw him running 
after me I ran faster because I knew what I 
had to expect if he caught me. And he did catch 
me at last and threw me down on the ground 
and kicked me in the face and body. There was no 
one present when he did this but myself. He then 
ran back, and I crawled away on a side road 
and lay there until dark, in great pain. 

It was about 11:00 o’clock at night when a 
peasant passed by with his horse and buggy and 
saw me and came to my assistance and gave me 
a drop of brandy from his flask and took me 
home for the night. I was in his house all 
day long until I got well, and he gave me a sheep¬ 
skin coat to keep me warm and an old pair of 
boots, and said to me, “You can go back to town 
now because they w r on’t take any notice of you 


JUDAISM 


65 


any more. I could not keep you here, the Jews 
would break up my house if they knew it.” 

I went back into town and walked around 
all night and passed by my house many times. 
I saw my family sitting by a large fire, and saw 
my baby girl in my wife’s lap going to sleep. 

Sorrow in the heart is more painful than sick¬ 
ness. Sorrow is a destruction to the body, and 
the body begins to suffer till death comes. I 
have been through all the hell there is. I have 
been through all the trouble and all the suffer¬ 
ing the world has ever made for people. In the 
year 1888, the Russian government sent me for 
two years to Siberia, and I suffered there all 
the punishment that Russia has invented for in¬ 
nocent people. 

I came through, in 1903, the Kishenof Pogrom 
(the massacre of the Jews), when 25,000 Jews 
were killed in one w^eek, under the Romanoff 
rule. I came through more suffering than any 
man living, but the greatest suffering is that of 
a father when he loves his child who is stretch¬ 
ing out her little arms for her father to take 
her. I lost control over myself when I saw my 
baby that night on my wife’s lap, and I knew T 
she was asking for me, where I was, and why I 
didn’t come. Tears streamed dow T n my cheeks 
and I could not stop them; they ran and ran, 
and I thought they would never stop. I broke 
down. 

I passed through street after street, and many 
times w T hen I felt cold I ran to keep myself 
warm. No home, nothing to eat, and no friends. 
I was left alone, all alone. Every day I was 
hiding in warm places—a saloon or a Russian 
coffee kitchen. Through the night I would go 



66 


JUDAISM 


out around behind the houses to pick out food 
from the garbage cans to keep me alive. 

So it went on for several weeks. One day 
I stood on the corner and saw a funeral passing 
by and my wife and family and brothers and 
sisters behind the coffin which was made for me. 
It was my funeral. There was nothing in the 
coffin but my clothes, and these must be buried. 
It is the law that if a Jew becomes a Christian 
he is counted for dead, and the family is mourn¬ 
ing for seven days, just as if he had really died, 
sitting on the floor or on a footstool, in stockings 
(as I have described in the Jewish funeral). All 
is gone, everything is forgotten, and it could not 
be brought back again. (In tradition we are dead 
and in Christ we live.) 

On the 20th of February my son met me in 
the street at 9:00 o ’clock in the evening and 
said to me, ‘‘Dog! Are you still alive? I thought 
you were dead.” And he hit me in the mouth 
with something hard—a stone or a piece of iron, 
and knocked my four teeth out of me, and walked 
away, and I was bleeding for hours. 

People may think it is not possible for a son 
to do this to a father, but to show you that the 
law is stronger, greater and holier than love from 
a son to his father: Urual a Costa, the great 
Hebrew philosopher in Holland, met his death 
from his son when he became a Christian. Menase, 
the great Hebrew of Spain and Spanish minister 
of finance, met his death from his brother after 
becoming converted to Christ, on the 15th of 
December in the year 1562. Bar Batelia of Israel, 
a Hebrew and Talmudist in Portugal, in the year 
1640 was found stoned to death by his Jewish 
congregation after becoming a Christian in the 
Catholic faith. Abraham Spinoza, Boroch Spin- 


JUDAISM 


67 


oza’s brother, has been tortured by the Jewish com¬ 
munity to death after accepting Christ as his 
Saviour, and was found on a dust barrel in the 
back yard of his home. And many more which 
I can show from history since the beginning 
of Christ. A Hebrew will forgive his soil when 
a thief or a murderer, but he will never forgive 
him when he accepts Christ as his Saviour. 

The Jew is not to be condemned for being 
so bitterly against the Christian Jew. Judaism 
suffered more under Christianity than were the 
Jews persecuted by receiving Christ. For this 
reason alone some Jews will not receive Christ 
because of being persecuted by their family and 
friends. 

In the beginning of March four Jews took me out 
from my sleeping place in a horse’s stable and told 
me they would send me from town, and gave 
me money. I went with them and, passing a 
frozen river, they had a hole in the ice already 
prepared and put me right under it down to my neck 
and held me there for twenty minutes, saying: 
“We will baptize you in the Name of your Jesus.” 
They ran away and left me there with my head 
and' arms on the ice. It took me some time to 
crawl out, and I was soaking wet and cold and 
shivering, and had no place to even dry my 
clothes. This would look to be certain death. 
But the struggle for existence and hope of future 
happiness has kept many a person from death. 
I W as very glad when I came out from the frozen 
water. I kept on running and began to feel 
warm. My clothes dried out after many days 
from the heat of my body. 

There was an old man, a peasant. He had 
a coffee shop open all night. Many times he 
gave me a cup of coffee through the night and 


68 


JUDAISM 


a piece of black bread. He told me one night 
he must not give me any more because the Jews 
said that they would turn his store over. I was sick 
and half starved and had nowhere to lie down, 
but God sent relief to me one night. A big, strong, 
six foot man came up to me when I was walk¬ 
ing through the streets and said: “You are the 
man I want. You are the one I am looking for. 
Come with me. I will give you a home.” I 
went with him and he took me to a large build¬ 
ing. And I said to him, “You don’t mean to 
take me in here? This is an asylum for the in¬ 
sane.” He said: “Yes, it is, and you belong 

here.” I struggled, and he hit me and carried 

me in, and I was there for a month and had a 
place to sleep and to eat; but the doctor saw 
that there was nothing the matter with me and 
let me go. And my trouble then began anew. 

In April I was knocked down by four Jews 
in the street at 12:00 o’clock at night, and they 
broke two of my ribs. I lay unconscious for five 
hours. When morning came the police picked 
me up and took me to a hospital, and I was there 
eight weeks and came out well, but with a little 
pain in my side. 

This is not all. I am giving my persecution 
and conversion in brief. My trouble was greater 
even than this. My two little girls, seven and 
five years old, saw me one day, and they ran 
to me, but my brother, sister, and her husband 
pulled my baby away from me when she was 
holding her arms around my neck and crying 
for me to come home, and my own brother, one 
year younger than I, kicked me in the leg and 
spat in my face. This brother I had given 1,000 
rubles on his marriage day to go into business. 
My sister, the only one I had, I had given 1,000 


JUDAISM 


69 


rubles and many dresses on her marriage day 
as well as paid for the wedding expenses. And 
now she didn’t know me any more. 

But all who tried to kill me failed, and I came 
out the victor because “His will be done,” and 
it must be done. It was not myself who did 
it. It was Christ, and He took me out from 
every trouble. 

After coming out from the hospital they told 
me my wife had married a widower. I knew 
that man. And they told me I must try to get 
out of town because my wife’s husband said he 
would murder me. 

I went to the Chief of Police and told him 
my whole story. 1 cried to him and begged 
him to help me—to take me away from there. He 
knew me and knew that the Jews would kill me, and 
said “I will send you away from here, Rabbi.” 
I kissed his hands. This was the first time in 
my life to kiss a Gentile, but I was over-glad 
and over-joyed. And he said not to mention it 
to anyone. 

He bought me a ticket to London, England, 
and gave me five rubles in my pocket, and I 
went to London. When I came there I coud not 
speak English, even one word. But a Jew in 
London gave me a job on a ship which had to 
sail to Canada, and 1 took that job and they 
put me down in the engine room to shovel coal 
in the engine, four hours on and four hours 
off. I worked on the ship for ten days, until 
arrived in Montreal, and I left the ship with¬ 
out getting my pay because they expected me 
to go back to London with the same steamer. 

I came out to Vancouver, B. C., and traveled 
to Seattle, Wash., and worked and studied English, 


70 


JUDAISM 


and took up missionary work amongst the Jews, and 
also in Portland, Tacoma and Spokane. The Lord 
has been with me since, and I am a missionary for 
Christ. 

THE END 





























































